


as if from underwater

by saintawesome



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Bunker Ending (Far Cry), F/M, Gen, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 15:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintawesome/pseuds/saintawesome
Summary: Rook doesn’t remember Joseph bandaging her, doesn’t remember him washing the blood and ash from her skin. She definitely doesn’t remember falling asleep in a ratty tank top and what feels like pajama pants, soft and much too large, without underwear.





	as if from underwater

Rook sleeps after that initial bout of consciousness, when she woke up chained to the bed in Dutch’s bunker with only Joseph Seed for company, proclaiming he was her father and she his new child.

She doesn’t know how long she sleeps but when she wakes, the pain of her injuries from the crash, from the fight that preceded it, is almost completely gone. There’s a sharp, stinging pain in her wrists, as if they had rubbed raw against the handcuffs during her sleep. 

She’s been moved to the bed itself at some point, rather than sitting on the floor. Her arms are chained to headboard, hands cold with bloodlessness. She flexes them painfully and glances up, squinting in the dim lighting. It’s dark, but there’s a faint glow from the hallway, enough that she can see just a little.

Her wrists are bandaged carefully, gauze and tape wrapped neatly around them. Her hands and arms are clean.

Rook doesn’t remember Joseph bandaging her, doesn’t remember him washing the blood and ash from her skin. She definitely doesn’t remember falling asleep in a ratty tank top and what feels like pajama pants, soft and much too large, without underwear.

She rattles her handcuffs experimentally, hoping desperately that perhaps they’re not fastened at all, or they’ll magically open. Of course, nothing happens. 

The room— the same room in which she woke up after the Collapse, the same room she awoke in when Dutch saved her all those months ago— is silent except for her. Joseph must be somewhere else, maybe in the bunk room or sleeping on the couch in the den.

She thinks about trying to fall back asleep, but her dry throat and full bladder put the brakes on that plan.

“Joseph?” she calls hoarsely. 

There’s no response, no sounds from deeper in the bunker. Panic washes over her. 

What if something happened to Joseph? The bunker is old, there could be radiation leaks. Or what if he was injured trying to repair something? What if his injuries from their final fight were worse than she thought, and he’s lying dead somewhere?

She yanks at the cuffs frantically, ignoring the pain as panic overwhelms her. What if he’s dead and she’s left to die of thirst, chained to Dutch’s shitty little bed in this bunker?

“Joseph!” she almost screams, rolling off the bed. Her knees hit the concrete floor with a painful crack and she winces, arms straining against the cuffs. “_Joseph_!”

There’s a faint, fleeting sound, like bare feet running on concrete, and then Joseph’s arms are around her, his damp, bare chest pressed against her back.

“Shh, my child, I’m here,” he says, chin hooked over her shoulder, cradling her to him. “I’m here, be at peace.”

Rook is both repulsed by the feel of him and comforted by his presence, the touch of another human being, the sound of his voice, his breath hot against her cheek. His skin and hair are wet, dripping cold water onto her, and she realizes he must have been in the shower.

“I thought you were— I thought I was—” She can’t make her words come out right, so she just shakes her head and slumps against him.

Joseph sighs, a puff of hot breath on her skin, which is sticky and chilled from panic-sweat. He strokes her hair. “I’m sorry, child. I’d hoped you would sleep through the night.”

She shakes with nerves, anger, other unnameable emotions. “I have to pee,” she mumbles. “It woke me up.”

Joseph makes a soft, confirming hum and pets her hair before standing to unlock her handcuffs. Her arms drop loose, thumping to the bed awkwardly.

Rook winces, forces herself to her knees so she can draw her arms to her chest and rub her wrists. They sting under the bandages.

“I hope you didn’t hurt them again,” Joseph says, taking one of her hands and pulling it close to check the bandages. “They’re finally healing up.”

Her eyes blearily follow her arm to look at Joseph, carefully bent over her hand, and she can’t help but make a strangled noise.

Her last memory of him was his gloating speech, his proclamation of being right, while Dutch lay dead on the floor. His face had been cut and bruised from their fight.

Now, it’s smooth and healed. There’s a bruise on his jaw that looks fairly new and a healing scar on his cheek, but his other injuries are gone.

“What?” she whispers, reaching up to touch his cheek, where she remembers deep bruising and cuts. “Your face.” She touches her own face with her other hand, feeling smooth, healed skin. “How?”

Joseph hums softly as he inspects her bandages, seemingly satisfied with what he sees. “You’ve been very ill, my child,” he says, clasping her hands in his. “For some time.”

“How long?” she whispers, horror creeping over her. She thought she’d been asleep for mere hours, but how long has it been? Days, weeks? Months? How long has she slept, the world dying above her and Joseph Seed alone with her unconscious body?

Joseph hesitates, letting her hands drop into her lap. He cups her face instead, brings her forehead to his, a gesture she’s seen him do a dozen times and rarely experienced herself. It’s surprisingly intimate and comforting.

“Six weeks,” he says as he pulls back, smoothing his hands down to her shoulders.

_Six weeks_.

Rook feels like the world just fell out from under her. She hears a high-pitched noise, like an animal whining in pain, and it takes a second for her to realize it’s _her_ making the noise.

“Maria,” Joseph says softly, soothingly, and that’s so much worse, how does he know her _name_? She can’t remember the last time anyone called her anything but Rook, Dep, Deputy, _Sinner_. “Maria, it’s—”

Her whine ratchets up into something more like a scream, a high-pitched wail of confusion and loss and fear. “_No_,” she screams, shoving at him, tears running fat and hot down her cheeks. “_No_, don’t call me that, why do you know that?”

Joseph grabs her arms firmly, not angry but practiced, and pins her down on the bed. She thrashes, kicks at him, but he holds her down, wet hair dripping down his chest and back. “Maria,” he says, “please, calm down. You’re okay, my child. I won’t harm you.”

“What have you done to me?” she whispers, the terror-fueled rage filtering out of her, leaving her limp and exhausted. Her body tingles from adrenaline, flooding her system with no outlet. She wrinkles her nose at the sharp, acrid smell filling the room— she’s wet herself in her fit.

Joseph smooths back her hair, paying no noticeable mind to the wet spot on her pants, the sodden bedding underneath her. “I’m taking care of you,” he says, wiping her tear-stained cheek with his thumb. “As a shepherd does his flock. As a father does his child.”

“Why? After everything I did to you?”

Joseph tips her face to his, meets her eyes. His smile is a little sad. “You’re all I have left.”

—

He carries her to the bathroom once she’s calmed down more, hitching breaths and limp limbs. She’s not catatonic this time at least. It’s an improvement.

He knows she’s not entirely herself though, because she doesn’t object to him stripping her, helps him pull her tank top off and gingerly steps out of her soggy pants. He averts his eyes from the soft pink of her nipples, the swell of her breasts, the darker pink that flashes between her legs when she gets into the shower.

Joseph strips off his pants, damp from pulling them on hastily following his own bathing, and crouches behind her, willing himself to behave. It’s difficult to pull the shroud of The Father over himself this time, to get his sinful desires under control.

Maria doesn’t seem to notice his struggle, kneeling limply in the shower next to the bucket he’s been using for bathing. The shower works fine, but he’s hesitant to waste any more water than they absolutely must. Dutch Roosevelt was a good survivalist, with a strong, sturdy, prepped bunker, but Joseph cannot bring himself to trust anyone not approved by Jacob.

The water from his own bathing is still in the bucket, cold and a little soapy, so he dips the rag in and begins to wash Maria, his Lamb, the only remainder of his Flock. He scrubs the sweat from her back, washes her arms and shoulders. He tips her head back, orders her to close her eyes and pours a cup of water through her hair, working a bit of the cheap two-in-one shampoo Roosevelt had stockpiled through it, then rinses. It’s been their routine for the past six weeks and even half-aware Maria falls into it, obeying his commands and gestures soundlessly.

Joseph has to hold back the visceral disappointment of her regression. It had seemed, for a few moments, that she had come back to him. That he wasn’t alone in this hole in the ground, with a catatonic woman he spends half his time caring for like an infant, and half convincing himself not to smother her in her sleep and put her out of her misery.

He can’t bring himself to do it. Even if she never speaks again, even if he spends seven years down here spooning canned soup into her mouth, bathing her and wiping her ass, at least he isn’t alone. At least, at night when he presses himself against her side in the bed they share, he can hear her breathing and he knows he isn’t the last person left alive on earth.

He hands her the rag, orders her to wash her intimate parts while he rinses her hair and begins to comb through it. It had been a brassy blonde with a reddish tint under the Montana sun, but down here it’s dulled to dishwater, suppressed like the rest of her personality and sass. He misses the smart-mouthed woman who blew up his statue with a rocket launcher, the woman who started fires and tripped down hills and killed his Flock with an almost gleeful intensity at times. 

The woman who, John swore, once kicked a turkey to death after it attacked her.

As she is now, Maria is less a person than a slip of shadow, fading a little more every day. She’d been lean but strong when the Collapse hit, firm legs and toned muscle from months spent in the Montana wilderness, grappling down mountains and outrunning his Flock. He runs his hand down her back, slicking the water away. The knobs of her spine stick out now like a mountain range. He can count her ribs. Her shoulder blades look like wings, so sharp they almost look like they could burst through her skin at any moment.

He lets them both drip dry for a minute, squeezing as much water as he can out of her hair. Every drop is precious. Then, he urges her to her feet, wraps her in the damp towel he used earlier.

“Better?” 

There’s no answer. Maria stares blankly at the wall, eyes unfocused. Joseph closes his eyes briefly, presses down the disappointment that rises within him.

He sits her on the toilet and leaves her there with an order not to wander, walks back to the bedroom. He strips the bedding, pulls harder than necessary, snarls when the fitted sheet resists. He doesn’t cry. This is a test, and he will pass it.

He doesn’t allow himself to think on how silent the Voice has been since the first bomb exploded.

Joseph has to flip the cheap mattress over but he gets the bed made up again, puts the soiled linens to soak, brings fresh clothing for Maria. He tries not to let his frustration spill over when he finds her still sitting on the toilet, as unmoving as if she were a corpse.

“Arms up,” he says instead, and she responds sluggishly, lets him dress her like a doll. Maria leans heavily against him when he pulls the soft, cotton pants up her legs. The strong muscle there is wasting away, leaving them spindly. He cups her calf briefly, feels how thin it is, and wants to weep.

He scoops her up, bypasses the kitchen and puts her back in bed. He doesn’t have it in him to try and dribble broth into her slack mouth right now. Instead, he undoes the sodden bandaging around her wrists.

The stitches holding the slashes in her wrists shut are healing nicely, with no sign of infection. He wraps fresh gauze around them and tapes it off, shackles her back into the cuffs.

She’s sleeping, or at least he thinks she is. Her eyes are closed in the bedroom’s dim lighting and her breathing has evened out, deep and slow.

He contemplates again, just for a moment, pressing the pillow over her sleeping face and holding it there until she stops squirming, just like his daughter so very long ago. Perhaps this is a belated punishment, then. Perhaps he died in the crash and this is hell.

Joseph kneels next to the bed instead, prays fervently to a God he is no longer sure is listening for a miracle, for forgiveness, for a sign. For anything. Then he turns off the lights and presses himself to Maria’s side. He lies awake in the darkness, listening to her soft breathing, the mechanical noises of the bunker’s guts working, and hopes when she wakes tomorrow, she will remember.


End file.
